Bouquet of Flour

Sunday, August 31, 2014

My father, recently, approached me with the wish for a type of frosting lighter then buttercream. He didn't like the amount of butter required when one makes buttercream to top cupcakes. Originally, I believed it couldn't be done. However, after a few short minutes on Google, I found a whipped cream recipe and one for ganache. I decided they were to perfect substitutes to try and top the cupcakes with.

Also by request of my father, I made marble cupcakes to pair with the frosting. Marble used to be my favorite type of cupcake, before I discovered red velvet, and I had never thought to make it in cupcake form. Granted, I failed abysmally at taking photos throughout the process, so this will mainly be description.

I combined two different recipes to make the marble cupcakes. One was a recipe I had used previously to make chocolate chip cupcakes, and another provided me with the proper way to use the batter to make the chocolate portion.

First, you have to preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Then, in a separate bowl, measure out 1 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoons of salt. Then, in a larger bowl, cream a softened stick of unsalted butter and 1 cup of sugar until it is light and fluffy (about 4-5 minutes). The original recipe asked for you to use a paddle attachment in a stand mixer, but our stand mixer is quite heavy. As such, I just used a hand mixer and creamed the two together for about a minute longer then recommended, since I had to stop and scrape down the bowl occasionally (it was a bit too wide to do something like this).

Next, you have to beat in two eggs, one at a time. Then comes in 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and beat everything until it's lovely and smooth.

Now comes the flour mixture and 2/3 cups of milk. Beat in about half of the flour, and half of the milk. Then the other half of both groups. Now you need to add aspects of another recipe. The only bit of that recipe that I used was how much cocoa powder to add. Until the point where you add the cocoa powder, you have simply made vanilla cupcake batter. You can separate that into 12 cupcake tins and bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating halfway through.

However, if you want to be fancy, you can attempt marble cupcakes. Take out between 1/3 and 1/2 of the vanilla batter and put it in a separate bowl. Then, beat in (I just stirred) 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder until combined. Add a splash of milk if you think the batter is a pit too thick. I had a few small clumps of cocoa powder when I was finished, but they were fine once the cupcakes had baked.

What I would recommend doing here is putting a little vanilla batter, then a little chocolate, and then another layer of the two (switching sides for the second one) in order to ensure the two batters can be equally marbled. Take a butter knife and swirl until it looks pretty, and then you're done. What I did was just place a lump of vanilla and then chocolate on top, meaning it didn't have the marbled effect I was looking for. If I were to do it again, I would definitely change the method I marbled the batter.

Now, just bake them for 18-20 minutes, rotating halfway through. Take them out when an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Hopefully, you now have marbled cupcakes. Let them cool for 5 minutes before moving the cupcakes to a rack to cool completely.

After those have cooled, it's on to the frosting. Start by making a simple ganache. I used 4 ounces of semisweet chocolate, chopped finely and placed in a ramekin. Microwave 1/2 cup of heavy cream (I used heavy whipping cream) until simmering (that amount took about 1 minute). Be certain to not let the cream boil over, so use quite a large container.

Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let that sit for 2 minutes. Use that time to marvel at the cupcakes you previously made. Once those 2 minutes have passed, stir the cream and chocolate until smooth. It will look as though it's never going to come together, and that's expected. Don't worry; it will and you'll be left with a beautifully rich chocolate ganache.

What I did then was core 6 of the cupcakes, saving both the crumbs and the top. Next, I filled the hole I'd made with the still liquid ganache and covered the exposed chocolate with the top from each respective cupcake. Save the rest of the crumbs, as they'll be used for decoration later.

Now you have to let that sit for 2 hours so that it can come to room temperature. Once you've done that, you can move onto the whipped cream.

Before you even start the whipped cream, be certain to place the metal bowl and metal whisk in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes (15-20). Then, take them out, and measure out 1 cup of heavy whipping cream and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Put both the sugar and the cream into the bowl. Now you just have to whisk the entire thing until the cream has stiff peaks. It doesn't take long, just a few minutes, and then you'll have whipped cream.

Now it's time to decorate the cupcakes. If you want, you can cover some with the now room temperature ganache, but be certain to leave some. If you have the original amount of ganache, take a little less then half of the whipped cream and fold it in, creating a mousse. You can always add more whipped cream, so start with a little and add to your liking.

Take the whipped cream and mousse, and decorate the cupcakes as you will. I took large spoonfuls of each and placed them in the center of the cupcakes, taking care to cover up the evidence of how you'd cored some of the cupcakes. The ones that you did core, sprinkle some of the crumbs you had saved from earlier in order to identify them out of all of the others.

And, tada! You've made marble cupcakes topped with whipped cream and chocolate mouse, with some having a hidden ganache surprise. I'll add pictures soon, once I've gotten them off the camera.

Here's a link to the original vanilla cupcake, and the link for the marble cupcake one I stole aspects from.

Here's a link to the whipped cream recipe, and one for the chocolate ganache.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

As a companion to the previously made s'mores cupcakes, for the family members who are picky about their cupcake flavors, I made our family favorite of Hersey chocolate cupcakes. For frosting, I decided to try a recipe for vanilla buttercream.

As the s'mores cupcakes were baking, I turned my attention to the chocolate ones. The original recipe created 24 cupcakes, but I didn't need nearly that many, so I halfed the recipe, meaning the ingredient amounts in the pictures will be half to what they actually would be in the original recipe. Just as with the s'mores cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350F and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
In a medium bowl, stir together 2 cups of sugar, 1 3/4 cups of flour, 3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Unmixed dry ingredients

All nicely mixed and glorious

After that, you need to add 2 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 1/2 cup vegetable (I used canola) oil and 2 teaspoons of vanilla to your dry ingredients. Beat that with a mixer (sadly, I had to use a hand-held mixer this time) for 2 minutes.

I'm not certain if this photo is just the previous step or the next one, but just use it for both just in case

The last step of creating the batter is to mix in 1 cup of boiling water. The batter will be quite thin afterwards, don't worry.

Finished thin batter; how fun!

Separate the batter, hopefully cleanly, into the 12 prepared muffin tins. If it wasn't clean, I would recommend that you just clean up the tin with a tissue to ensure that you don't have any little burned cupcake bits.

I am quite a messy person

So clean, so beautiful

Nicely divided cupcake batter

Next, put the cupcakes into the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the largest one comes out clean. Then, just take them out of the oven and cool inside the tin for 10 minutes. Take them out from the tin after that and let them cool on wire racks.

Lovely baked cupcakes

Such a nice close up shot of the cupcakes

After the cupcakes were completed, now it was time to make the vanilla buttercream. I used a recipe from Curly Girl Kitchen, which I found using some googling. Previously, when I've made vanilla buttercream, I hadn't whipped it enough which meant that, while it still tasted good, the sugar and the butter seperated after being put and removed from the fridge.
To start this recipe, which I actually succeeded in making, you will need to beat 1 stick of room temperature butter using a whisk attachment for 1 minute. I would recommend chipping your butter into smaller pieces before you start, as I did after that first picture.

Failing with my first attempt to whisk butter

Look at that beautiful successfully whipped butter

Then, you need to mix 1 cup of powdered sugar with the butter to combine. Be careful, as powdered sugar is known to burst up in a cloud when you try to mix it. That's why I was thankful for such a large bowl!

Mid whisking of the powdered sugar and butter

Add 1 tablespoon of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat that on a higher speed for 4-5 minutes, or until the frosting is "impossibly light and fluffy". Be certain to scrape down the bowl as needed.

Finished tasty frosting

Look at those nice peaks

Once I had finished the frosting, I decided to try piping little swirls on top of the cupcakes. There wasn't enough frosting for the classic cupcake swirls, but I was able to do adorable little swirls using a sandwich bag with a tip cut off the end. It was my first time piping on cupcakes, but it was quite a lot of fun and I liked the finished picture.

Notice the lovely rainbow nailpolish?

Finally, I added a piece of Hershey's chocolate to the top of each of the cupcakes to add even more chocolate to them. Two of the swirls didn't succeed, so I just spread them flat. And the cupcakes were finished!

What a lovely little swirl

What a lovely collection of cupcakes

The cupcakes were lovely and moist (I only had half of one). There were many compliments on them, as well as on the frosting. We had to refrigerate some of the frosting for a later use, and it defrosted nicely. The cupcakes themselves freeze and defrost beautifully, so they're fine to save for over a week before you actually want to use them. I would recommend making the frosting on the day you're going to eat them, as it was safer to do that rather then trying to let it sit out or microwave.
Here's the link to the recipe for the chocolate cupcakes, but I'll include the ingredient list below.
And here's the link to the frosting recipe. The link includes a lot of other recipes for different types of buttercream, so I recommend you check it out. But the ingredients for the vanilla will be below.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

One of the things I've been bugging my parents about for months now (honestly, ever since January) is that I wanted to make s'mores. I love the summer treat, but we never had the cause to actually make them/buy the materials. However, that changed when my mother came into my room one Saturday and handed me a recipe she had found in a Real Simple magazine.
"Make this," she told me. I was extremely eager to do so, as cupcakes are some of the things I most love baking/decorating. Combining my love of cupcakes with my desire for s'mores, there was no way these cupcakes weren't being made.
The basis of these cupcakes, made in honor of some cousins coming from up North to visit, is a simple graham cracker cupcake. First, preheat your oven to 350F and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Next comes the batter. To make that, you must have 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs, which is, approximately, 9 crackers if you're grinding it yourself, as I was. With my mother's knowledge of how to use our food processor, I finely ground the crackers into crumbs.

Look at those glorious graham cracker crumbs

Then, whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, 1 cup of flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a medium bowl. That is your dry ingredients done.

Unmixed dry ingredients

The power of the whisk has been applied

Beat one stick of butter and 3/4 cups of sugar together on medium high until light and fluffy. That should take you approximately 2 to 3 minutes.

Make certain the butter is room temperature

Nice and fluffy

On that same speed, beat in the 2 eggs one at a time and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Be certain to scrape down the bowl as needed.

Looks so delicious

Reduce your mixer speed to low and, alternatively, add in the dry ingredients and the 3/4 cups of milk. Be certain to begin and end with the dry ingredients and mix well between each of your additions. But only mix until just combined. Mine ended up with a few larger chunks of the graham cracker crumbs, which created a nice appearance.

So thankful for the stand mixer

And the batter is completed!

(I can attest to the fact the batter alone tastes good)

Then it's on to dividing the batter among the muffin cups. The batter wasn't liquidy, which meant it was easily divided between the 12 muffin tins.

The batter was nicely divided about into 3/4 of the muffin cup

Look how nice, neat and equal it divided

Be certain to bake them on the middle rack of your oven, rotating once, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake (I recommend your largest if there's a size difference) comes out clean. In total, that should take about 20 to 24 minutes.

Look; my reflection with the baking cupcakes

Mid baking of the cupcakes

Then, cool in the tin for 10 minutes, but then transfer then to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chilling in the tin

Such an artistic shot of delicious cupcakes

After that, all that's left is to prepare the ganache and melt the marshmallow toppings. I don't have any pictures of the ganache making, as it was done with the assistance of my cousin with baking experience, but I can still dictate what was done.
Bring 1/3 of a cup of heavy cream (we used whipping cream) to a boil. Once it's boiled, remove from the heat and add 6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. Let that sit for 5 minutes before whisking to combine. Originally, we tried to use Hersey's milk chocolate, but quickly realized we had misread the packaging and had far too little chocolate, creating a slight disaster as we inadvertently created hot chocolate. Thankfully, due to how many chocolate chip bags we have lying about in the kitchen, we were able to find a bag of the correct chocolate and added it until the ganache became ganache again.

The marshmallows went more smoothly. Place 12 large marshmallows, the classic s'more ones, on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Be certain they're a bit apart so that they don't stick together. Bake them on the top rack, we just kept it at 350F, until golden and deflated. That should take about 6 to 10 minutes. Then just let them cool and then you're ready to assemble.

Convenient oven marshmallow roasting

Once everything has cooled, but the ganache isn't set, divide the ganache among the 12 cupcakes and top each with one of the toasted marshmallows. You can either let them sit until firm to the touch (15 to 20 minutes), or eat them immediately, which is what we did.

Success!

Beautiful shot of bitten cupcake

Despite the disaster with making the ganache, the cupcakes still came out delicious. The graham cracker cupcakes didn't take a lot like graham crackers, so perhaps I would add a few little bits of graham cracker at the end if I made them again, just to see if they got a stronger flavor. Or I would add a few more crumbs in the actual batter (we had some left over, so it would be easy to do).

The cupcakes were refrigerated for about a week and a half, and I can attest they were still good, though the cupcake did become more muffin-like in texture. The ganache and the marshmallow, however, made up for that.

Give these cupcakes a try! Here's a link to the online version of the recipe, but I will include the ingredient list after the signature.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

I thought it'd be best to open this blog up by saying that yes, I am a teenager. I'm in high school and spend quite a lot of my time sitting around on the internet looking up recipes I want to try. Many of the channels I'm subscribed to on YouTube are baking channels. I beg my parents to buy me the supplies I need and, when they actually do, I hurry to try my hardest to use them.

So, I believe it's fair to say I have an interest in baking. It's not a professional interest, as my major goal in life is to become a writer, but I let it take up quite a bit of my time.

My mother posed this crazy idea of creating a blog at dinner last night, after I commented about how I wanted to try a recipe for French bread pizza I wanted to try. I decided to give it a try, since I needed something productive to do this summer besides writing fanfiction.

Most of the recipes I'm going to be trying are ones I find online, but I'll be able to give you an actual account of how the recipes work (or don't work). Hopefully this will be an amusing ride for everyone involved.